Fearless and Free
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Anam Zafar
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Sophie R. Lewis
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Ijeoma Oluo
About this listen
“A gorgeous, captivating gem of a memoir…Josephine Baker’s as enthralling on the page as she was on the stage.”—Abbott Kahler, New York Times bestselling author of Eden Undone and Sin in the Second City
Published in the US for the first time, Fearless and Free is the memoir of the fabulous, rule-breaking, one-of-a-kind Josephine Baker, the iconic dancer, singer, spy, and Civil Rights activist.
After stealing the spotlight as a teenaged Broadway performer during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, Josephine then took Paris by storm, dazzling audiences across the Roaring Twenties. In her famous banana skirt, she enraptured royalty and countless fans—Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso among them. She strolled the streets of Paris with her pet cheetah wearing a diamond collar. With her signature flapper bob and enthralling dance moves, she was one of the most recognizable women in the world.
When World War II broke out, Josephine became a decorated spy for the French Résistance. Her celebrity worked as her cover, as she hid spies in her entourage and secret messages in her costumes as she traveled. She later joined the Civil Rights movement in the US, boycotting segregated concert venues, and speaking at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King Jr.
First published in France in 1949, her memoir will now finally be published in English. At last we can hear Josephine in her own voice: charming, passionate, and brave. Her words are thrilling and intimate, like she’s talking with her friends over after-show drinks in her dressing room. Through her own telling, we come to know a woman who danced to the top of the world and left her unforgettable mark on it.
©2025 Originally published in French by Éditions Corrêa in France as Les Mémoires De Joséphine Baker by Marcel Sauvage, in 1949. Reissued in French by Éditions Phébus, in 2022. First English language edition simultaneously published with Vintage UK, a division of Penguin Random House Group, in 2025 Copyright © 2022 by Éditions Phébus / Libella, Paris Translation copyright © 2025 by Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis Foreword copyright © 2025 by Ijeoma Oluo (P)2025 Penguin AudioCritic reviews
“In Fearless and Free, Josephine Baker—groundbreaking performer, audacious spy, and unflinching Civil Rights activist—shares intimate details of her life and times, proving she’s as enthralling on the page as she was on the stage. This gorgeous, captivating gem of a memoir will both introduce Baker to a new generation of readers, and cement her legacy as an enduring international icon.”—Abbott Kahler, New York Times bestselling author of Eden Undone and Sin in the Second City
“Fearless and Free is a remarkable story of a remarkable woman. Reading Josephine Baker's life in her own words is like having the world's greatest tour guide to pivotal movements in history. The book allowed me to see the Roaring Twenties, World War II, and the Civil Rights Movement with fresh eyes. It is everything you hope a memoir could be.”—Matthew F. Delmont, author of New York Times Notable Book Half American
“While Josephine Baker is likely best known as an iconic and pathbreaking dancer and performer, this fascinating memoir, Fearless and Free, reveals that she was just as accomplished intellectually and strategically as a lieutenant for the French Resistance in World War II and civil rights activist. All the while, she gave her time, energy, and money to those more vulnerable than herself. Born in Mississippi, grown into one of France's greatest entertainers, Baker's story illustrates the ways that Black womanhood and the constant search for freedom fuels unimaginable feats. What an astonishingly beautiful life Josephine Baker lived. I am so grateful that she shared her life, her love, and her story with all of us. This book is a gift.”—Jenn M. Jackson, PhD, author of Black Women Taught Us
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Story
Tina Knowles, the mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Solange Knowles, and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland, is known the world over as a Matriarch with a capital M: a determined, self-possessed, self-aware, and wise woman who raised and inspired some of the great artists of our time. But this story is about so much more than that. Matriarch begins with a precocious, if unruly, little girl growing up in 1950s Galveston, the youngest of seven.
By: Tina Knowles
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Becoming Spectacular
- The Rhythm of Resilience from the First African American Rockette
- By: Jennifer Jones
- Narrated by: Chanté McCormick
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The Radio City Rockettes are as American as baseball, hot dogs, and the Fourth of July. Their legendary synchronized leg kicks, precise lines, and megawatt smiles have charmed audiences for a century. But there is a hidden side to this illustrious national institution. Like Gelsey Kirkland’s iconic Dancing on My Grave, Becoming Spectacular allows us to walk in Jones’ tap shoes—beautiful and glittering, yet painful and binding. Bringing into focus the wounded life of a trailblazer, this searing memoir is also a triumphant celebration of a spirit who refused to be counted out.
By: Jennifer Jones
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I'm That Girl
- Living the Power of My Dreams
- By: Jordan Chiles
- Narrated by: Angel Pean, Jordan Chiles
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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I'm That Girl has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.
By: Jordan Chiles
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Mask of the Deer Woman
- By: Laurie L. Dove
- Narrated by: Isabella Star Lablanc
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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At rock bottom following her daughter’s death, ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but back to her roots. Starr’s father never talked much about the reservation where he was raised, but the tribe needs a new marshal as much as Starr needs a place to call home. In the past decade, too many young women have disappeared from the rez. Some have ended up dead, others just…gone. Now local college student Chenoa Cloud is missing, and Starr falls into an investigation that leaves her drowning in memories of her daughter—the girl she failed to save.
By: Laurie L. Dove
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The Harder I Fight the More I Love You
- A Memoir
- By: Neko Case
- Narrated by: Neko Case
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Neko Case has long been revered as one of music’s most influential artists, whose authenticity, lyrical storytelling, and sly wit have endeared her to a legion of critics, musicians, and lifelong fans. In The Harder I Fight the More I Love You, Case brings her trademark candor and precision to a memoir that traces her evolution from an invisible girl “raised by two dogs and a space heater” in rural Washington state to her improbable emergence as an internationally acclaimed talent.
By: Neko Case
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Blob
- A Love Story
- By: Maggie Su
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The daughter of a Taiwanese father and white mother, Vi Liu has never quite fit into her Midwestern college town. Aimless after getting dumped by her boyfriend and dropping out of college, Vi works at the front desk of a hotel where she greets guests, refills cucumber water samovars, and tries to evade her bubbly blond coworker, Rachel. Little does Vi know her life is about to be permanently transformed when she agrees to a night out with Rachel. In the alley outside the bar, Vi discovers a strange blob—a small living creature with beady black eyes.
By: Maggie Su
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Original Sins
- The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism
- By: Eve L. Ewing
- Narrated by: Robin Miles, Eve L. Ewing
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Why don’t our schools work? Eve L. Ewing tackles this question from a new angle: What if they’re actually doing what they were built to do? She argues that instead of being the great equalizer, America’s classrooms were designed to do the opposite: to maintain the nation’s inequalities. It’s a task at which they excel.
By: Eve L. Ewing
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Agent Josephine
- American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy
- By: Damien Lewis
- Narrated by: Damien Lewis
- Length: 16 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Prior to World War II, Josephine Baker was a music-hall diva renowned for her singing and dancing, her beauty and sexuality; she was the most highly paid female performer in Europe. When the Nazis seized her adopted city, Paris, she was banned from the stage, along with all "negroes and Jews". Yet, instead of returning to America, she vowed to stay and to fight the Nazi evil. Overnight she went from performer to Resistance spy. In Agent Josephine best-selling author Damien Lewis uncovers this little known history of the famous singer's life.
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A documentary
- By Picky Buyer on 07-18-22
By: Damien Lewis
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On Muscle
- The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters
- By: Bonnie Tsui
- Narrated by: Bonnie Tsui
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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From the bestselling author of Why We Swim comes a mind-expanding exploration of muscle—from our ancient obsession with the ideal human form to the modern science of this amazing and adaptable tissue—that will change the way you think about what moves us through the world.
By: Bonnie Tsui
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Run for the Hills
- A Novel
- By: Kevin Wilson
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it’s just been Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While she sometimes admits it’s a bit lonely and a less exciting life than she imagined for herself, it’s mostly OK. Mostly. Then one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she’s his half sister.
By: Kevin Wilson
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Audition
- A Novel
- By: Katie Kitamura
- Narrated by: Traci Kato-Kiriyama
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively enjoyable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day–partner, parent, creator, muse–and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.
By: Katie Kitamura
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Boat Baby
- By: Vicky Nguyen
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Starting in 1975, Vietnam’s “boat people”—desperate families seeking freedom—fled the Communist government and violence in their country any way they could, usually by boat across the South China Sea. Vicky Nguyen and her family were among them. Attacked at sea by pirates before reaching a refugee camp in Malaysia, Vicky’s family survived on rations and waited months until they were sponsored to America. But deciding to leave and start a new life in a new country is half the story…figuring out how to be American is the other.
By: Vicky Nguyen